DELI: A Delivery Context Library For CC/PP and UAProf

Different web-enabled devices have different input, output, hardware, software, network and browser capabilities. In order for a web server or web-based application to provide optimized content to different clients it requires a description of the capabilities of the client known as the delivery context. There are two compatible standards have been created for describing delivery context: Composite Capabilities / Preferences Profile (CC/PP) created by the W3C and User Agent Profile (UAProf) created by the Open Mobile Alliance (formerly the WAP Forum). UAProf has been much more successful than CC/PP and there are over 500 UAProf profiles currently available (RDF version).

DELI is an open-source library originally developed at HP Labs that allows Java servlets to resolve HTTP requests containing delivery context information from CC/PP or UAProf capable devices and query the resolved profile. It also provides support for legacy devices so that the proprietary delivery context descriptions currently used by applications can be replaced by standardised CC/PP descriptions. Development on DELI is no longer active as the project finished in 2003.

As well as DELI you may be interested in WURFL, a free, open source project that provides an alternative source of information to UAProf. It provides a comprehensive resource of device information, and contains device information for 6000 variants of devices. Because WURFL is open source, anyone can contribute device information and corrections, not just device manufacturers. WURFL provides its own XML format for device characteristics description.

DELI related HP Labs Technical Reports

An overview of UAProf validation in DELI, 19th January 2006
Input to W3C Device Desciption Working Group, 2nd August 2005
HPL-2003-31Using multiple namespaces in CC/PP and UAProf,John Gilbert and Mark Butler
HPL-2002-269 A test client API for CC/PP and UAProf, Charles Smith and Mark Butler
HPL-2002-268 Validating CC/PP and UAProf profiles, Charles Smith and Mark Butler
HPL-2002-249 Device independence and the web, Mark Butler, Fabio Giannetti, Roger Gimson, Tony Wiley, IEEE Internet Computing Sep/Oct 2002, Vol 6 No 5, pp. 81-86
HPL-2002-173 Using capability profiles for appliance aggregation
HPL-2002-89 Using capability classes to classify and match CC/PP and UAProf profiles
HPL-2002-73 Some questions and answers on CC/PP and UAProf
HPL-2002-35 CC/PP and UAProf: issues, improvements and future directions
HPL-2001-260 DELI: A delivery context library for CC/PP and UAProf